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SERMON 



PREACHED 11* 



HOLLIS-STREET MEETING-HOUSE, 



ON SUNDAY, OCT. 31, 1852. 



BY THOMAS STARR KING, 

ft 

PASTOR OF THE CHURCH. 



BOSTON: 

BENJAMIN H. GREENE, 

124, Washington Street. 

1852. 






BOSTON: 

PRINTED UY JuIlN (7ILS05 IKD BOK, - rRPFT. 






SERMON 



Daniel vi. 3 : — " Then* this daxiel was preferred above the presi- 
dents AND PRINCES, BECAUSE AN EXCELLENT SPIRIT WAS IN HIM J AND 
THE KING THOUGHT TO SET HIM OVER THE WHOLE REALM." 

There is but one subject that can engage our 
thoughts in the church to-day. A great sor- 
row saturates the air. The solemn sense of 
irreparable loss weighs down the spirits of the 
American people. Out from the heart of the 
land has burst a grief, of which the official 
symbols — the sobbing of cannon, the mourn- 
ing drapery, the lowered flags, the public reso- 
lutions — are, for once, the honest and feeble 
signs. The whole feeling of the nation, like a 
conscious weeping willow, arches its vast re- 
spect, and droops its sensitive foliage over one 
new-made grave. 



The words I have selected from the Old 
Testament are perfectly applicable as an ex- 
pression of the greatness which has recently 
been stricken from the living forces of our 
country. He was preferred above all presi- 
dents and princes. The highest office would 
have been nothing but the proper pedestal, to 
set the proportions of his greatness in their 
appropriate position and relief. The largest 
honors would have been onlv the natural dra- 
pery of his broad shoulders. If all the great 
men of this generation could have been col- 
lected from all nations, it is probable that no 
one would have been found to deserve the pre- 
eminent place for massiveness and majesty of 
mind, and to stand forth, by honorable elec- 
tion, as " the foremost man of all this world," 
so much as he whose mortal life lias re- 
cently been quenched. 

But, however this may be, it cannot be 
questioned that the crown of our national 
genius has been snatched away by death. By 
commou consent of the most eminent in our 
land. — the orators, the lawyers, the states- 



.^ 



men, — he was their leader, whose supremacy 
they cheerfully allowed. His brow was, for 
more than a generation, a prominent part of 
our natural scenery. His was the great gra- 
nite face, like that on the Franconia Mountain 
in New Hampshire, standing out from the 
solid ridges of our New England intellect and 
character, and overlooking the land. Him and 
the great cataract of the lakes, we boasted of to 
other states as the chief glories of our country. 
It would have been grand, if, in the fulness of 
his vigor, and before any controversies of his 
political honor arose, he could have stood in 
the most eminent place of our country, — the 
magnificent entablature, dignifying and com- 
pleting the various columns of its genius. 
He did not have this proper setting for his 
powers; but he did stand highest by his 
native sublimity. In the regard of those 
whose opinion is lasting fame, in the respect 
of foreign eyes, he stood, as he will stand 
in history, preferred, for mental greatness, 
above all the presidents and princes that were 
more distinguished by office. 



" Pygmies are pygmies — r ill , though perched on Alps ; 
And pyramids are pyramids in vales." 

How can it be otherwise than that the sud- 
den disappearance of this colossal greatness 

from the moral landscape of the world should 
shock all hearts with emotions thai affecl the 

lowest strata of our sensibility ! [f the tidings 
had been borne to us that some of the perma- 
nent wonders of nature had been obliterated, 
that an earthquake had shaken down the 
great range of the Himalayas, or ingulfed the 
majesty of Mont Blanc in its black bosom, or 
had levelled the rock over which Niagara has 
roared for ages, our minds could not have been 
so startled with a feeling of the mysterious 
power that envelopes us, as now that we 
learn — 

*' This mighty spirit is eclipsed ; this power 
Hath passed from day to darkness ; to whose hour 
Of light no likeness is bequeathed, no name, — 
Focus at once of all the rays of fame ! " 

What visitation of Providence can thrill the 
citizens of our country, especially of New 
England, with more solemn thoughts than to 
know that the majestic presence — " how 



noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in 
form and moving how express and admirable ! 
in action how like an angel ! in apprehension 
how like a god! " — is never more to be seen 
of men ; that the greatest nature our land has 
reared since Washington was born is never 
more to guide our councils and ennoble our 
Capitol ; that the book of his activity is 
sealed ; and that he is now to be a treasure of 
memory, a silent grandeur, in the quiet halls 
of history, — a force and an ornament belong- 
ing to the past ? 

This is not the place, of course, for any 
eulogy, or even an analysis of the powers, of 
the departed statesman. That which would be 
extravagance if said of most great men is the 
simple statement of his intellectual power. 
And yet, in speaking of his genius, we should 
be careful not to weaken our eulogium by 
doing injustice to the breadth of the field of 
genius. There are kinds of greatness of 
which his mental constitution did not largely 
partake. To the rank of explorers and dis- 
coverers, — men who anticipate history and 



8 



hasten destiny, and who stand far ahead of the 
vanguard of humanity, holding up the flame 
of a new truth, winch their intellectual Are 
had kindled, that flashes light into the unex- 
plored pathway of the future. — he did not 
belong. He was made to be an institutional- 
ist, rather than a prophet. His mission was to 
comprehend, purify, conserve, and strengthen 
the good structures which society has already 
gained, to widen and confirm their possible 
blessings for the race, rather than to meditate 
a new order, even though it might be a higher 
one, which could be reached only by disruption 
of established ties, and through the turmoil of 
revolution. The natural attitude of his mind 
was reverence for the beneficent truth and 
institutions which the past bequeathed. He 
was the profound interpreter of the practical 
wisdom embodied in political systems, and the 
potent defender of it against the misappre- 
hension of ignorance, the perversion of party 
interests, and the hand of heedless innovation. 
He estimated the positive social good which 
rooted institutions disburse, even though many 



evils wore incidental to them, of really more 
account than the ghastly theories of perfect 
good, which beckon away so many flighty and 
adventurous intellects from the solid road of 
slow and steady progress. 

He had the combination of powers, temper, 
and discipline, that make a safe and successful 
administrative statesman ; and his intellect 
was just the ally which our system of govern- 
ment most needed, at the time when he entered 
public life, to set forth its wisdom, to unfold the 
beautiful symmetry of its structure and powers, 
and to hold it up to the admiration and grati- 
tude of the country, that the affections of the 
people might fasten upon it, like the tendrils 
of the ivy upon the solid castle- wall. 

The whole structure of our Constitution ; the 
grandeur and marvel of its combinations, as 
relieved against the miserable patchwork of 
the old confederation ; its originality among 
the political edifices of history ; the skill with 
which its forces are balanced, and the oase of 
their working, — were comprehended in his 
intellect as the mind of a mechanic compre- 
2 



10 



hends the idea of a machine which his genius 
has invented. He was the epic poet of th< 
Convention of 1787. His sympathies were 
less with the Eevolution than with the builders 
and the erection of our present national polity. 
Our whole governmental America; the bands 
that connect the State forces with the vivify- 
ing power of the central administration ; the 
complex harmony of judiciary and executive, 
military and legislative powers ; the ligaments 
that could sustain the greatest strain, and 
the delicate tendons where it needed the 
most tender handling and the most perma- 
nent safeguards ; the safe vents supplied in it 
for popular passion, and the cylinders that 
must constantlv condense the force of unre- 
lenting law, — all played in his brain as a 
vital and complicated conception, whose ni; 
nificence he revered, and whose beauty was the 
constant inspiration of his heart. The work 
of the great Convention that framed our go- 
vernment seems nobler as reflected in his 
capacious understanding, and as its ideal reds 
and beams and valves worked without friction 



11 



in the bright medium of his imagination, than 
it probably seemed to the hot intellects of 
those who had just completed their task, and 
left it outlined on immortal parchment. 

The idea of the Union, which to many minds 
is an abstraction, and too often is the custo- 
mary expletive of a demagogue's vile morality 
and feeble thought, Avas with him the vivid 
and adequate symbol of the greatness and 
the privileges, the power and the peace, of 
the republic. It seemed as though his eye 
always took in the moral and civil scenery of 
the country, — its thousands of happy homes, 
its schools and churches, its factories and 
workshops, the vast fleets of its commerce, 
and the widening line of civilization, before 
which the wilderness was falling ; and then, 
when he spoke, made the word Union embody 
all the gladness and grandeur which so much 
prosperity and plenty, so much order and 
happiness, awakened in his breast. For this 
reason it was, we must believe, that he called 
on his countrymen to cherish the sentiments 
that should make that word sacred. For this 



12 



reason he used continually the awful imagery 
of the breaking up of constellations, and of 

anarchy in the firmament, to state the tenors 
and the woes that would attend an explosion 
of the forces that hind our states together. 
EQs intellect appreciated the wisdom of their 
combination, and felt, too, the delicacy of their 
pois . Not that he was indifferent to the 
evils which are covered and partially main- 
tained by our great national bond: but lie 
would not look at the evils exclusively or 
minutely. He saw an immense overbalance 
of good, — benefits more various, more sub- 
stantial, and more precious, than any polity 
on earth had ever secured to men. These the 
word Union represented; these, to his mind, 
the blotting of that word annihilated, and in 
their place introduced discord, contention, and 
bloody strife. 

Add to this, that the great future of America 
(if explosive passions could only be kept down) 
charmed his imagination. He comprehended 
what the country would be, centuries hence. 
In swelling speech he bade future generations 



13 



hail ; and there were times when he seemed to 
see the upturned faces of the Saxon millions 
yet to come, beseeching him, by their looks and 
by their prayers, to pledge all the resources of 
his intellect and his influence to preserve the 
unity and peace of a nation, upon which their 
fortunes and their happiness were cast. It 
may be a sign of the secondary grade of his 
genius, that the idea of right, in its abstract 
holiness and majesty, did not burn constantly 
before him. But no abstract principle or sen- 
timent withdrew him from a careful measure 
of the good which an actual system would 
secure to men in the long run. He was not 
led away by any enthusiasm for liberty as an 
unbodied idea, but rejoiced in the liberties 
which the Constitution steadily secured to a 
continent ; and, no doubt, felt that the law of 
right commanded him to defend and perpetuate 
that charter, in the hope that the evils it shel- 
tered would die out in time, while its good 
would widen and be everlasting. 

The prophetic men, who stand above all 
systems in immediate communion with eternal 



u 



truth and justice, command the deepest grati- 
tude and worship of after-times. But God has 
a use for these Herculean heroes of society. 
And among the crowd- of legislators who have 
no larger vision than sectional and partisan 
passions disclose', and the -warms of politicians 
that act only with reference to self, let us 
gratefully confess the eminence of this man, on 
whose brain were stamped the features of an 
empire, whose imagination personified a go- 
vernment, and who felt that he spoke and 
voted for the interests of millions and the 
hopes of posterity. 

Mr. Webster was a statesman. His great- 
ness did not consist in a capacity of concentra- 
ting and leading the passions of large bodies 
of people. Clay and Chatham were eminent 
for this power. But he was a philosophical 
statesman. He had a clear and vigorous com- 
prehension of truth in the domain of public 
affairs. When he succeeded, it was by the 
force of his statement in the senate or the 
cabinet; and his power over the people re- 
sulted from the majesty with which lie robed 



15 



the truth, by his argument and utterance, and 
by the dominion which he made it exercise over 
their reason and heart. His ample mind was 
a spiritual state-house or capitol, rich with the 
annals of constitutional history, tilled with 
the stately lore of national and civil law, 
studded with apartments that were crowded 
with records of diplomatic wisdom, freighted 
with the principles and statistics of public 
economy. His eye was constructed to see the 
truth and proprieties of national relations. He 
knew the coasts, the shoals, and the soundings 
of the ocean of national experience ; and his 
arm had the vigor to grasp and guide the helm 
of a state. His eloquence, too, had the serious 
and self-assured strength that made it compe- 
tent to the utterance of a nation's thought and 
purpose. It was fit in language and manner 
for a congress of kings. Even in his simplest 
passages, the power of a great personality was 
manifest. His common sense was ponderous 
and sublime, by the momentum which his arm 
gave it, and the dignity which his diction 
imparted to it. Within the limits of his ge- 



10 



nius, his powers were unsounded. No triumph 
that he ever won seemed to require the whole 
of his resources, or to drain the hiding-] tlaees 
of his strength. The movement of his mind 
was like the sluggish might of the sea. His 
genius has thrown up into literature the most 
brilliant spray of rhetoric and imagination; 
but its natural manifestation was the majestic 
ground-swell of a resistless, undeveloped, un- 
fathomable power. 

Other elements and indications of his won- 
derful greatness would arrest our notice, in 
any thins; like a fall treatment of the theme. 
— the truthfulness of nature and sincerity of 
spirit which hindered even his reason from 
being a powerful advocate in a bad cause : the 
dignity of his speech and bearing in all public 
seeing, and the strenuous influence of his 
example against the vulgar degradations of 
congressional debate; the strong moral and 
religious reverence that pervaded his public 
words; the fast fidelity to Ins friends; and 
i he tenderness which made the majesty of his 
presence sweet and cheering in his home. 



17 



But we cannot critically measure the outline 
and bulk of liis nature, standing so near Lis 
new -made grave. In what I have thus fal- 
sa id, I have kept you too long from the grate- 
ful and practical religious lessons that are 
unveiled by such a life and such a death. 

The great Teacher has said, "He that is 
greatest among you, let him be your servant." 
We are called on now devoutly to recognize 
the beneficent ordering of Providence, that 
makes all true wisdom and greatness generous, 
and compels it to be a public advantage. 
Selfishness is in the heart of the world ; but 
the best portion of the power of pre-eminent 
genius is saved, by a law of Providence, from 
the control of selfishness, even if that temper 
is in the heart of the possessor. The thoughts 
of a large reason, the creations of a rich 
imagination, the heroic activity of a irreat 
patriotism, are for the people, for mankind, for 
all time. What gratitude is due from us to 
Heaven that it is so! A mind like Bacon- 
burns with the passion for truth, and braces 
up its brain to the strenuous search and 



18 



careful demonstration of new principles that 
rule the domain of science But he cannot 
keep those principles for his exclusive use, 
He cannot put a price upon them, and say, 'I 

will sell them only to the rich, only to feed my 
purse and my pride." The moment he proves 
mid utters them in his intellectual joy, the air 
bears them on its wings, and makes them 
universal. It turns out that the toils and 
victories of that intellect in its library were 
for the benefit of humbler men, for the ad- 
vancement of knowledge and the improvement 
of civilization. In his desire to satisfy the 
thirst of his own intellect, Bacon harnessed 
himself to the whole fabric of society, and 
strained his sinews to start the world on the 
path of progress. The greatest of all, he was 
the servant of all. 

So, too, Shakespeare cannot patenl his 
creations, and say. "Those only shall enjo\ 
the fruits of m.\ genius who will pay my price 
for the great luxury.'" The all-merciful God 
will not sutler that, but admits the poor to 
enjoy them, and scatters the leaves that bear 



11) 



them into almost every home. Newton does 
not think of the sailor, or the interests of 
navigation, when he toils till lie lifts the moon 
by the muscles of his logic and weighs it, and 
proves on what pillars of law the sky-roof is 
upheld ; but he is the intellectual attorney of 
future ages and the human race, in all those 
wearisome labors to unlock the hieroglyphic 

O «/ XT 

cipher of celestial law ; and the pay he gets is 
gratitude, and a name printed in star-type on 
the firmament. The patriot, when he resolves 
to resist oppression, and peril his life rather 
than bear the finger-weight of tyranny upon 
his soul, lifts up the heavy mesh that holds a 
people in its toils, in his struggles to free 
himself, and so becomes the saviour of a 
land. 

Every magnificent brain scatters light like 
the sun. The ample intellect that has just 
been withdrawn from us, illustrated, in its 
way, the beneficence of God. The nation is 
bereaved; the people mourn; for the nation 
has lost a great servant, the people a majestic 
friend. God gave him a glorious mind, fit to 



20 



do national service ; and it is compelled to do 
that service. Whatever interests or desires 
might draw him towards a strictly professional 
or private Life, he cannot stay there. He rises, 
by the natural upsoaring of his powers, to the 
Capitol. The whole land has the benefit of 
bis private discipline, his thought, his speech. 
Countless farms, workshops, counting-rooms, 
and homes, that have the deepest interest in 
peace, have the benefit of his insight, his 
knowledge of public law, and his cool, just 
temper, to save them and civilization from the 
detriment of war with our mother-land. The 
Greeks, struggling for liberty, catch the inspi- 
ration of his eloquence, which strengthens the 
public opinion of the world in their behalf. 
His fellows, that need justice, have the aid of 
his understanding and his lips in the solemn 
precincts of the temple of law. The whole 
North has the advantage of his mature powers 
to silence the malice and the taunts of southern 
envy. Public order, that has been shocked l»y 
a barbarous midnight murder, has the aid of 
his arm to tear the accomplices of an assassin 



21 



from the subtle technicalities that seem to 
hide them from the reach of justice, and drag 
them to their doom. And the moral sense of 
humanity possesses his frame, and breaks out 
through his lips, to impeach the Czar for his 
cruelty to Hungary, and arraign him for trial 
at the bar of the civilized world. 

His work is a public one. With a hero's 
strength he must do the hero's labor. The 
ambition which he felt, the desire to stand 
eminent in the world's history that was in his 
heart, the noble emulation that stirred him, 
were the intellectual thongs and traces by 
which Providence kept him fastened to the 
great public burdens which it required his 
strength to draw. 

There is nothing in public life to attract the 
eyes and the heart of one that would taste 
the purest and constant pleasures of life. 
How much did the great statesman enjoy of 
that privacy, those relaxations, the satisfac- 
tions of those agricultural pursuits, the affec- 
tions and repose of home, which most attracted 
his heart? How slight the opportunities 



og 



granted to him to retreat from the national 
arena, and taste the happiness of life! 

"He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find 
The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow ; 
lie who surpasses or subdues mankind 
Must look down on the hate of those below. 
Though high above the sun of glory glow, 
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 
Contending tempests on his naked head, 
And thus reward the toils which to those summits led." 

The tax is so severe upon political greatness 
that no man would pay it, — the world would 
be deprived of the benefit of such greatness, 
if the Almighty had not provided that it 
cannot escape the toils by which its service 
may accrue to the human race. On the 
score of pleasure, the powerful servant of 
the country, whom we mourn, would not have 
looked a moment upon all the pecuniary 
recompense he gained for his devotion to 
public life; but fortunately there were provi- 
dential motives constantly weighing down the 
yearnings of the heart, and keeping him 
pledged to the service of society. 

And then think of the detractions and slan- 
ders, the open defamation and insult, which 



23 



public character must bear from partisan ho- 
stility and malice. \\ 'hat hut the order of God, 
demanding great service from great talents, 
could keep a man in public life against this 
terrible warning, — the certainty of the shower 
of arrows, many of them poisoned arrows, 
against which he must stand? 

M The secret enemy, -whose sleepless eye 
Stands sentinel, accuser, judge, and spy ; 
The foe, the fool, the jealous, and the vain ; 
The envious, who but breathe in other's pain ; 
Behold the host ! delighting to deprave, 
Who track the steps of Glory to the grave, 
Watch every fault that daring Genius owes 
Half to the ardor which its birth bestows, 
Distort the truth, accumulate the lie, 
And pile the Pyramid of Calumny '. " 

"With what fearful accuracy does this describe 
what the eminent man we deplore was com- 
pelled to endure! The foulest ink has been 
cast at him in his latter years. And so much of 
it bv reformers too, — men that stood forth as 
the patrons of virtue, humanity, and the sacred 
law of God! We all know the chief and the 
sad occasion for most of these attacks. We 
know how many ciood men were forced to with- 
draw their sympathies from the great states- 



2-1 



man by his speech and course towards the 
close of his senatorial career. But is the war- 
fare of a pirate upon a prominent man's motives 
the natural expression of virtuous dissent ': Is 
it essentia] that a reformer in opposition shall 
be the assassin of character? Is it necessary 
thai all dignity of temper and charity of criti- 
cism shall die oul of the nature that holds an 
advance-idea, and that the cause of humanity 
must be defended in the disposition of a 
friend? AVe arc gathered in a church dedi- 
cated to God; and his law is supreme over 
the highest genius, as over the humblest man. 
Let us not hesitate to say, that, if at the time 
I allude to, the great man, now gone, did bow 
his magnificent brain unworthily to the Slave- 
power, which he had always opposed, from 
the dictate of a personal ambition, forget- 
ting the awful trusts of genius and the service 
it owes to humanity, he fell; and his intel- 
lectual greatness only darkens his degradation. 

CD *■ <•- 

But who has demonstrated this hypothesis? 
Who has looked into that large heart, and 
found such black treason there? AYhat if he 



25 



did feel all the trusts of senatorial office and 
intellectual power; if he felt that the preser- 
vation of his country from the imminent 
danger of disruption was the comprehensive 
duty of a statesman, and the best permanent 
legacy to all races in our 1 >orders ? I prefer to 
believe this theory. It accords with the prin- 
ciples that always governed him. Then his 
action was conscientious and heroic ; and, 
although it may fail to commend itself to the 
conscience and wisdom of many, although they 
find it impossible as Christians to obey the sta- 
tute which he defended, let them remember, in 
justice to him, that he was placed in the Capi- 
tol to act, not from their light, but from his 
own. Let the passions of politics be silent, 
let the heats of hatred cool, at his grave. 
He went with religious calmness to meet Him 
who judges with blended charity and justice. 
And as we bow before the mystery of the vast 
Providence, let us unite in adoration of his 
ordinance, that the most gifted of his creatures 
shall be the servants of all. 

The allusion just made to the religious 

4 



26 



majesty and calmness of Mr. Webster's death 
-i- the second point which the contem- 
plation of his career should impress upon us, 
— the strength and support which religion de- 
rives from the convictions and loyalty of such 
an intellect. I put out of the question here 
every tiling that concerns loyalty of life and 
religiousness of character. It is not our pro- 
vince to search for and put together the proofs 
or the disproofs of that. But it cannot be de- 
nied that we have buried a great man. whose 
heart was alive with religious feeling, and 
whose mind was reverent in its recognition of 
religious truth. If proof is needed to establish 
the chief ideas of religion, — the existence of 
God, the supremacy of moral principles, and a 
future life, — we may turn for it, with equal 
confidence, to the mystic intimations of nature, 
or to the faith and tlie convictions which the 
greatest men of the world have cherished and 
expressed. The pre-eminent men of the world 
have not been atheists or doubters, but reve- 
rent believers and worshippers. WTiere, 
atheist! where, scoffer! will yon point us t<» 



27 



the large-limbed nature, the encyclopedic soul, 
that dignifies your miserable creed? Some 
slender, cold-hearted, third-rate, or perhaps 
second-rate man, here and there in history, 
has babbled some skeptical folly, or darkened 
his name by the shadow of atheistic thought; 
but, when we look up to the first rank of 
-cuius, — to Socrates and Plato and Pythago- 
ras, to Paul and Luther, to Bacon and Leib- 
nitz and Newton, — we find they are men who 
bow before the infinite sanctities which their 
souls discern. 

You have heard of the great reflecting tele- 
scope, built by a nobleman of Great Britain, 
whose tube, by the aid of ponderous machi- 
nery, is pointed towards the night-sky. What 
if it threw doubt upon the reports which our 
eyesight and ordinary glasses make concerning 
the glories of the sky ? What if it scattered 
the stars into mist, made Sirius nothing but a 
huge heap of fog, and banished all our associa- 
tions of grandeur and glorious law that have 
been connected with the heavens ? But it 
confirms all the visions of the ordinary in- 



28 



struments thai search the upper space; and, 
besides that, it breaks up the misty light of 
the nebuhe into sand-heaps of suns, and re- 
ports firmaments, far in the depths above us, 

which other lenses cannot reach. Tims the 
greatest souls of the race confirm the views 
and faith of ordinary minds: reflect more of the 
glories of God; disclose, by their more search- 
ing vision, fresh galaxies of mystery ; and 
make our thoughts of the Providence that eiu- 
1 >i aces us, and comprehends all things, more 
reverent and profound. 

What a shock it would srive the world's 
order, if such minds as Mr. Webster's -aw no 
(noofs of the divine existence, felt the strain 
of no law of duty, thrilled with no emotions 
of worship, but found the thoughts of their 
own genius sufficient company for their lone- 
liness; lifting their proud and flinty summits 
above the superstitions thai shade the valleys 
of human nature, into a bleak, atheistic air! 
It is not so. Religion is commended with 
the more earnestness to men by their con- 
sciousness of its truth. There was a fitting 



29 



commentary on the glorious eighth Psalm of 

David, when our statesman stood under the 
elm, at night, on his estate in Marshfield, and, 
lifting his solemn eyes to the light that blazed 
on the firmament, said, "When I consider thy 
heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon 
and stars which thou hast ordained, Lord, 
what is man that thou art mindful of him, or 
the son of man that thou visitest him?" 
That is the soul's astronomy. Overs weeping 
the skeptical chatter of irreverent mathemati- 
cians, there was an echo of the truth that 
sprang, ages ago, out of a great Hebrew heart. 
Jura answered to the voiee of the Alps. 

We do not mean to say, or to hint, that a 
taste for the literature and elegance of the 
Scriptures is a saving grace of character ; but 
we have a right to rejoice in all the unprofes- 
sional veneration which is offered to the sacred 
writings. It is well for the world to have 
eminent witnesses, that it is not an inter- 
ested and a clerical taste alone that bows to 
the sublimity of the great book. Is it not 
proof of the majesty of Job and Isaiah and 



30 



Habbakuk, thai they were the chosen teachers 
uf such a mind; that he retreated from care and 
sorrow into their society, and was strengthened 
and softened by their lofty and mystic speech? 
It is sufficient testimony to the greatness of 
these biblical geniuses, that the largest na- 
tures seek inspiration from them: it is equal 
proof of the loftiness of an intellect, that it 
rises into near acquaintance with these emi- 
nent souls. What if a great man does not 
always live in harmony with the truth he 
venerates? What if the stern characters he 
invites to his library sometimes rebuke him 
with their prophetic austerity, and the truths 
spoken from the sacred mount, to Avhich he 
Lifts adoring eye-, flash warning upon his infi- 
delity? Is not this a still more impressive 
revelation of their supremacy? and does not 
(he -rcat man's reverence, which their occa- 
sional denunciation does not impair, point to 
their royalty over conscience, which we should 
hasten practically to confess? 

We have a right, therefore, to ask. Is the 
Bible, which Mich men as Mr. Webster and 



31 



President Adams revered and made a constant 
study, a shallow book ? Is the Christian faith 
which such men as they adored as the supreme 

truth, and the only regenerative power of the 
world, a secondary matter? Are the religious 
relations of the soul, which such men affirmed 
were of first importance, and which no levity 
of their speech, at least, ever slighted, matters 
which we may safely disregard ? The answer 
we shall be forced to give these questions 
makes the most solemn truth practical, and 
sheds a searching ray into our hearts. The 
supreme benefaction to humanity of such an 
intellect as we have lost is the testimony it 
bears to the reality and the necessity of reli- 
gion. Now that he is gone, in the momentary 
gloom of his departure, I know not but these 
words stand out the most luminous of all the 
great words he uttered, — these words so sim- 
ple but sublime : " Religion is necessary and 
indispensable in any great human character. 
There is no living without it. Religion is the 
fie which connects man witli his Creator, 
and holds him to his throne. If that tie be 



32 



all sundered, all broken, he floats away, a 
worthless atom in the universe; its proper 
attractions all gone, its destiny thwarted, and 
its whole future nothing but darkness, desola- 
tion, and doath. A man with no sense of 
religious duty is he whom the Scriptures de- 
scribe in such terse but terrific language as 
living 'without Grod in the world." Such a 
man is out of his proper being, out of the 
circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all 
his happiness, and away, far, far away, from 
the purposes of his creation.'* 

It is worthy of remark in this connection. 
thai so comprehensive and reverent a student 
of the Scriptures as Mr. Webster was nol the 
partisan of any intricate and narrow theolo- 
gical theories. The broad, plain, primary 
truths of religion were sufficient for his reve- 
rence and his conscienc . 1 have heard it said 
that he disliked the word ''Christianity.'* and 
preferred the simple phrase, "the religion of 
Jesus." The spirit of penitence, faith, and 
Love, and a reverential gratitude for the mis- 
sion of Christ as the channel of redeeming 



33 



truth and life to the world, — these were the 
outlines of his theology; these were the defini- 
tions of Christian character which satisfied his 
mind. The report which a friend has made of 

his last hours assures the world, that there 
was nothing in his utterances of faith and 
hope " of a technical character. No expression 
escaped him which would mark him as of this 
or that theology, or of any church save the 
universal church of Christ." Thus his life and 
death give us an original illustration of the 
difference between theology and religion. What 
the smallest satellite of our system needs is the 
controlling force of the sun, and its bounteous 
heat and light; and the majestic Jupiter, as 
he ploughs his grand orbit, needs no more. 
Whatever system of astronomy be true, the 
regal planet requires nothing more than the 
check and the charity of the central orb, and 
the smallest asteroid receives no less. So the 
feeblest and the mightiest minds require alike 
the central and simple forces of religion, and 
rind their strength, not in artful theologies, 
but in the common and generous light and 



34 



influence from God that fall equally upon 
all. 

And without the solemn light of religion 
around it, and the greal background of reli- 
gious truth to relieve it, how utterly must the 
last hours of Mr. Webster have lost the majesty 
which was upon them! If he had died sim- 
ply a worn-out and disappointed man, look- 
ing with sadness at the blighted hopes of the 
earth, and lifting no thought to scenes beyond, 
how sad the last days would have seemed, — 
the wreck of a noble and weather-stained bark 
upon the rocks of death! But now, what a 
grandeur in the close of his career ! The 
deepening feeling that he was floating out 
beyond the reckonings of earth and the outline 
of human charts ; the calui fulfilinent of every 
duty, and the reining up of every faculty to 
obey the mastery of the will; the solemn tones 
of prayer, laden with the riches of his Language 
and humble with penitence; the majestic and 
tender farewell to family and friends; and 
then, after the broken ejaculations of the 
psalm for the divine rod and stall', the silent 



35 



close! — not a wreck on the desolate coasts of 

mortality, but the fueling of a noble ship into 
the mists that curtain the horizon, its sails all 
set, bearing one great and serene form beyond 
our gaze into the everlasting light! The spirit 
of such grandeur there should be in every 
death. Are we prepared thus to gather our 
robes about us ; thus to look up to Heaven for 
help ; thus to express our confidence in the 
truth of the Bible and the divine mission of 
Christ ; thus to feel the support of the rod 
and the staff which the feeblest need, and 
which does not bend under the weight of the 
mightiest arm ? 

I must ask you to bear with me while I 
refer to one more impressive lesson of such a 
life and death : I mean the solemn truth of 
immortality. When the news of such a loss 
breaks upon society, the first feeling is that of 
the mystery of death itself. It is as though 
we had never before realized it. And then it 
opens anew the problem of eternal life. It 
seems as if the departure of such a spirit must 
break the monotonous silence, — must open 



36 



for the moment some rift in the cloud, and let 
in a beam from the all-surrounding day. We 
ought to reflect upon this death, in regard to 
that question of immortality. If such a faith 
is ii<»t u fixed habit of our mind, we ought to 
pause, and set the vastness of his powers in 
our thought, and seriously ask the question, 
•• What has become of them ? whither are they 
gone?' This life cannot be what it ought to 
be, — man cannot be What he ought to be, 
— duty cannot be as sacred as it should be, 
unless >ve have convictions, settled as those 
which Christ had and which he would inspire, 
of the everlasting duration of our souls. And 
now is the time for us to think on that point. 
God calls on us to meditate. When he reinoN 
from the earth such men as Washington and 
Webster, his providence puts the question to 
every unsettled mind, "Do you believe that 
they are annihilated, swallowed up by the 
dark?' There is not a particle less to-day of 
the substance that made up the noble frame 
of Washington, than there was when he dig- 
nified the capital. Ages hence, the matter 



:>>7 



that clothed his spirit will still exist, un wasted 
by a grain. And does the mind, the virtue, 
the character, die, while not a hair of his 
bodily substance is suffered to slip out of the 
treasury of mattery Of that greal brow which 
was laid recently in the sepulchre, not a par- 
ticle will ever drop from the grasp of physical 
law. It may moulder, but it cannot be de- 
st roved. And do you believe that the reason 
of which it was the fortress, and from which 
it played the lightnings of argument and elo- 
quence, will be less permanent ? Does God 
think more of such a brain than of the under- 
standing that made its arch sublime? Was 
that soul an ephemeral thing of threescore 
years and ten, while the body is beyond the 
possibility of destruction ? It must be a dark- 
ened mind that can believe that, — a mind not 
quickened with a proper sense of God. Death 
is visibly defeated, to the eye of every reflective 
mind, when it drags into its darkness such a 
nature as that. The prey is too great. His 
hunger is not suffered to appease itself, even 
on the matter which the spirit inhabited; and 



38 



we know that the soul cannot slip into his 
ia\ Over the mystery of that tomb near 
which the ocean moans, we may hear the 
chant of nature, according with that of revela- 
tion. — "0 death! where is thv sting? 
grave ! where is thy victory ? " 

This is no mere speculative question, but 
the most practical of all questions. For, it" 
we answer the question of immortality aright 
for this man, we answer it for all men. If we 
feel that it is proved by his genius, then we 
lift the whole race, with which he was kindred, 
into the light and the responsibilities of an 
infinite existence. Then human life is not a 
mean thing, not a trivial thing, but a solemn 
grant, a moral trust. Then we are all living 
with the eye of God upon us, and an eternal 
future before us, the conditions of whose for- 
tunes our own habits arc deciding now; and it 
behooves each of us to ask ourselves before the 
tomb that has just opened. "In what spirit 
am 1 working? Is it (.no 1 am willing to carry 
into the light of eternity, and submit to the 
scrutiny of God ? " 



39 



A friend said, when the news of the great 
death readied us, that it seemed to him as 
though such a brain should have had two 

bodies to wear out. I believe that the limits 
of its earthly frame were not the limits of its 
existence. I should believe, on evidence in- 
dependent of revelation, that there are myste- 
ries in the universe for such a mind to revere 
eternally; great studies to engage its interest ; 
profounder laws than were opened here for it 
to grasp ; divine splendors to kindle deeper 
faculties than were here developed. If there 
were heroic virtues which were not appreciated 
or rewarded fully in his mortal career, I believe 
that he is gone into a state where the recom- 
pense is not affected by human injustice. If 
there were great errors and violation of trusts 
committed here, I believe that he has gone 
into the dominion of a justice that executes 
searching and righteous judgment on every 
soul, in view of the spirit's final welfare. And 
so, let us lift our thoughts from that grave to 
God and eternity. Let us be grateful to the 
Providence that sends great genius to us, and 



40 



bids it work in our service ; that reveals truths 
to us which the mightiest minds adore with 
the humility of children; and that intimates, 
through the death of such, the great destiny 
and privilege of every soul. In the light of 
that Providence and that eternity, let us pray 
that we may be faithful; let us resolve to 
redeem our time. 



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